


The Old Cas

by WonderStarLord



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1901 Castiel, Always Female Castiel (Supernatural), Castiel Can Hear Longing (Supernatural), Castiel in a Female Vessel (Supernatural), Everyone Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, F/F, F/M, Female Castiel/Male Dean Winchester, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderStarLord/pseuds/WonderStarLord
Summary: “Look, sweetheart, I’m not buying what you’re selling,” Dean said with a cold smile. “So who are you, really?”“I told you,” said Castiel.Humans were usually intelligent beings.A multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent keeps their old vessel, and our favourite no homo disaster bi has nothing holding him back.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 39





	The Old Cas

**Author's Note:**

> _“Wait, so Benjamin’s a woman?”  
>   
>  “Benjamin is an angel. His vessel is a woman.”_
> 
> * * *
> 
> The result of deep-diving back into this queer-baity hellscape and staying under since November 2020. I blame Season 16.  
>   
> Sex and gender identity + use of pronouns will eventually be explored.

_“Dean Winchester is saved.”_

Castiel considered returning Dean Winchester to his coffin after restoring his soul and repairing – essentially _rebuilding_ , given the extensive damage and decay – his body. He had resisted rescue before she gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. She was curious to see what he would do with his second chance at life – if he would even _choose_ life.

Standing above him at his feet, Castiel heard a deep intake of breath from the Righteous Man she had lain atop the dry grass above his grave. His eyes snapped open, only to scrunch closed again. Castiel tilted her head inquisitively. Dean Winchester lived, but did he _want_ to?

It took all the strength Castiel had to pull Dean’s struggling soul out of hell, relying on the surviving angels of her garrison to clear their path to earth. It was difficult. Angels were stronger, of course, but also vastly outnumbered by Lucifer’s abominations.

Dean had been in hell for forty years. A skilled torturer of condemned souls for a decade. Castiel had found his physical manifestation in the pit drenched in blood, spattered with jagged flesh, malevolently baring his teeth as his blade ripped into a mutilated soul on the charred, sizzling rack before him.

Castiel had never seen such rapturously rendered violence, but nor had she ever been witness to such profound pain. Disgust. Loathing. Sadness. And _love_. Love for the younger brother he had damned himself to save.

The hell-ravaged soul of Dean Winchester encompassed everything human that God had charged the host to protect and cherish. Castiel had never seen a soul so ugly and yet so _beautiful_.

Dean’s breathing eventually slowed and evened out. Castiel squinted at him as his eyes cautiously fluttered open. She congratulated herself on a job well done. The whites were healthy, pupils responsive, and irises their original mossy green, reminiscent of the wonderous nature that surrounded them.

Castiel smiled at the luscious trees, generously lending their shade above them. In the vessel of Dorothy James, she was able to restore Dean’s soul with less destruction than she no doubt would have wrought without one. The earth was not designed for angels to navigate on the humanly visible spectrum without a vessel.

Castiel was giving her thanks, gracious but at a respectable distance, to Dorothy when Dean’s green eyes found her deep blue ones. His widened in alarm before narrowing with suspicion. He nimbly jumped to his feet and assumed a fighter’s stance, fists raised. Castiel, at first, felt satisfaction. His musculature was excellent. He was in prime shape to end the Apocalypse he had been foretold to start.

“Who are you?” he managed to gruff out, his voice low and raspy.

 _Hydration_ , Castiel admonished herself. She reached out toward his throat with two fingers, but he harshly grabbed her wrist before she could get close enough to touch.

Castiel felt one corner of her lips turning upwards in challenge and amusement. Over a century later, and she still found the all the tiny ways in which her vessel reacted to her every thought fascinating.

Castiel broke Dean’s grasp quite simply and accomplished what she set out to do.

She held him in place with one hand gripping his shoulder while she laid the free fingers of her other on his throat. “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition,” she informed him as she moistened his vocal folds, and then set her grace forth to hydrate the rest of his organs.

Dean unthinkingly licked his lips, his immediate thirst quenched without acknowledging – or likely, even knowing – it. When he demanded “What the hell are you?” his voice remained low but sounded stronger. Clearer.

It was unfortunately too easy for an angel to forget that the human body required an endless intake of sustenance to remain ideally operational, angelic occupation notwithstanding.

“I’m an Angel of the Lord,” said Castiel.

After a long moment of silent staring between them, Dean finally told her to “Get the hell out of here.”

Castiel was pelted by waves of his denial and disbelief. Anger and fear. Desperation. Hope.

Humans truly were her Father’s most incredible creation.

“There’s no such thing.”

“This is your problem, Dean,” Castiel said and lowered her chin, staring at him more intently. “ _You have no faith_.”

Castiel turned blue skies dark and white clouds grey. A sunny fall day in Pontiac, Illinois was suddenly stormy. Thunder cracked and lightning flashed.

The thick trunks of the trees threatened to give, and their branches creaked as they swayed helplessly. Leaves rustled loudly and the long grass below them whipped flat.

Castiel allowed the lightest part of her angelic form to make itself known to human perception, and her wings cast a great shadow on the dense forestry behind her.

But then she stopped. Quickly put them away.

Dean’s face had contorted with agony. He was on his knees with his hands clapped over his ears.

Castiel swiftly knelt down before him, apologetic. “That was my mistake.” She touched the sides of his face and gently nudged his hands away so she could heal his bleeding ears. “Certain people, special people, can perceive my true voice.”

She was pleased to note that he didn’t make an attempt to physically repel her help this time. They were making progress.

“I thought you would be one of them,” she continued. “I was wrong.”

“That was you talking?” Dean said lightly, though no less gravely. “Lady, next time, lower the volume.”

Finished with healing him after her foolhardy display, Castiel lowered her arms and rose to stand. “I’ll refrain from showing you my true visage. It can be …” she grimaced, “overwhelming to humans.”

“And what visage are you in now, huh?” said Dean, eyeing her with equal wariness and confusion as he got to his feet. “What, Victorian Secret Angel?”

“By my understanding of your history, Edwardian would be a more accurate descriptor,” corrected Castiel. Dean hadn’t been born yet and humans had imperfect memories of the things they learnt. His error was understandable. “I obtained this vessel early in the twentieth century.”

Castiel looked down at the long skirt underneath her mint green coat and briefly fingered her high starched collar. It was probably time to update her attire.

“You’re possessing some poor bitch?” admonished Dean.

“She’s a devout _human_ woman,” Castiel clarified for him. Female dogs – or any kind of dog, in actual fact – were unsuitable vessels for even the lowest ranks of the heavenly host.

Castiel cocked her head at Dean in question. Her answer had made him roll his eyes for some reason she didn’t understand.

Dean didn’t seem to have any verbal response for her, so Castiel continued her explanation. “She prayed for this from a young age.”

“Look, sweetheart, I’m not buying what you’re selling,” he said with a cold smile. “So who are you, really?”

Castiel felt her eyebrows draw together and the skin between them wrinkle. Remarkable.

“I told you,” she said.

Humans were usually intelligent beings.

“Right.” Dean sounded sceptical. “And why would an angel rescue me from hell?”

He sounded devastatingly sure in his scepticism, and Castiel felt strangely hollow in the chest region of her vessel.

This wasn’t the incomprehension of an underdeveloped ape. This was the man who railed against his rescuer, because hell had twisted him to believe he belonged there.

“Good things do happen, Dean,” insisted Castiel, stepping closer to him.

Dean’s lips sourly downturned. “Not in my experience.”

“What’s the matter?” Castiel posed to him softly. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved?” Because he did. A thousandfold. Every human soul was precious, his included. Perhaps his most especially.

Castiel sensed that part of Dean wanted to shrink away, but he stood firm and asked, “Why’d you do it?”

“Because God commanded it,” she said stoically. “Because we have work for you.”

* * *

“Buy me dinner first, or quit with the groping!” grumbled Dean, yanking his left shoulder away the so-called angel. His upper arm stung, so he rolled up the sleeve covering it. Angry red skin puffed up from the surface. “What the hell did you do to me?”

“‘I gripped you tight’ wasn’t a metaphor, Dean,” said Castiel solemnly. “Rescuing you from hell was no mean feat.” She reached out to touch him again.

“Ah-ah!” Dean moved out of range. “Are all angels this grabby?”

Castiel frowned down at her hand. “I had intended to offer you a comforting gesture.” She looked like a kicked puppy. Or the woman she was possessing did. Her vessel. Whatever. Freaking angels.

“Well,” said Dean flatly, “don’t.” He glanced at their surroundings. “What did you – how did we get here?”

Dean had only just registered that they were no longer in the glass telephone booth on the side of the road. _They_ , as in _both_ of them cramped in there. Castiel had no concept of personal space. It was kinda funny, but mostly annoying.

“We flew.” Castiel pursed her lips in thought. “Or teleported, I suppose you might find easier to understand.”

That probably explained the touching. This time.

Dean stared at Castiel, disbelieving. Resurrection? Teleportation? What on earth _wasn’t_ in this thing’s bag of tricks?

Dean soon realised that his staring probably wasn’t the best move. Castiel simply stared right back, unbothered and unnervingly intense.

Dean had to try really hard not to show how uncomfortable he felt. The way Castiel looked at him, it was like she could _see_ him. _All_ of him. Read his mind, peer into his soul, all that freaky supernatural crap. For all he knew, she could.

 _Nope_ , thought Dean. _Screw this_. He was out.

“You wanted to find your brother,” continued Castiel a-matter-of-factly. “I found him.” She perfunctorily gestured to door number _207_ in what appeared to be the Winchester Usual kind of motel: cheap and crappy.

Dean bent over, queasy. Flying, whether by airline or angel, sucked balls.

He ignored his churning gut and knocked on the door.

“Ruby, I –”

“ _Ruby_?” said Dean incredulously.

Sam had opened the door, considerably bulkier than the last time they saw each other, and Dean gaped at the first word out of his little brother’s mouth.

Sam didn’t seem to have registered the incredulous question in his tone. After a prolonged pause, Sam pulled a knife from his jeans and lunged at Dean.

Red-faced and roaring, Sam was furious. Dean supposed that added credence to Castiel’s claim to pulling his sorry ass from the fire. His great escape sure as hell didn’t seem to be Sam’s doing, if the commitment to kill was anything to go by.

Castiel separated them as if they were two squabbling seniors in a retirement home, holding them apart with the length of her arms, using embarrassingly little effort.

Startled into stillness, Sam uttered, “Whu …?”

“Heya, Sammy,” grinned Dean. “Meet Castiel.” He nodded perfunctorily at Castiel. “Cas, Sam.”

Sam recovered himself and struggled against Cas’s solid hold on him.

“Tight grip, huh?” joked Dean.

“WHO ARE YOU?!” spat Sam, enraged.

Dean looked Sam squarely in the eye. “Your name is Samuel William Winchester. You’re my little brother, and I think you secretly like it when I call you Sammy,” he couldn’t resist adding with a smirk. “You’re a real Taurus in the ass, have an irrational fear of clowns, and you hung posters of Rio and Zatanna over your bed when you were a kid.”

Sam stopped fighting Cas, almost collapsing, slightly falling into the hand holding him back. Dean peripherally noticed that Cas had retracted the hand touching Sam markedly quicker than the one she had on him, but didn’t think much on it. It was probably just because Sam didn’t have the displeasure of being all kinds of familiar with her already.

Dean smiled softly. “Silver blade, holy water. Bring ’em on over. I promise I’m me, and I’ll prove it.”

After splashing and slicing and overlong bear hugs, Sam’s teary eyes comically widened as they both watched Cas’s hand glow over the cut on Dean’s arm, healing him.

“You know, for a frisky stalker chick, you’re handy to have around,” said Dean, sorta making nice.

Dean still didn’t like the idea of angels. He especially disliked the idea of their coexistence with monsters and demons and doing crap-all to stop them. Where were they when he, or _any_ hunter, any _person_ , needed them?

But _this_ angel, maybe, wasn’t so bad.

“I’m not stalking you, Dean,” said Cas, her face completely serious. “I have been stationed here, tasked with a mission.”

“Who, me? Because, I gotta say, it sounds like –”

Dean cut himself off when he saw Cas’s head suddenly twist with one ear upwards, like a well-trained service dog hearing its whistle.

And then, before he could blink, she was gone.

“So, uh, new friend?” Sam laughed awkwardly.

Dean chuckled under his breath. “Something new, all right.”

“Weird getup,” commented Sam, bemused. “Where’d you find her? _Masterpiece Theatre_?”

* * *

“Ruby, Sam?” cried Dean, sharply turning the steering wheel of the impala to turn towards a road that would take them closer to Bobby’s house. “C’mon, man. You’re smarter than that.”

Sam was supposed to be the smart one. He knew better than this. Better than to slum it with a freaking demon. Alone. Just him and Ruby while Dean was in hell.

Sam shot back, “Not everyone has an angel perching on their shoulder, Dean.”

Cas was hardly perching on his shoulder. She was more like a sentient shadow that may or may not have saved his bacon from eternal damnation, and stared at him a lot. But, like everyone else in his life eventually did, she left. She had left at the first sign she might be needed elsewhere.

Which she might be, being an angel and all. But …

“If she even is an angel,” retorted Dean.

Was she?

Could she be trusted?

Dean wanted to. He wanted to be able to trust her. And he felt like he should. But he wasn’t even sure if angels really did exist.

“Then tell me what else she could’ve been,” reasoned Sam. “You saw her wings! I saw her heal your arm!” What do we know can do that?”

“A demigod! I dunno!” Dean gaped helplessly. “We don’t know,” he said firmly, “which is why we’re going to someone who might.”

“Dean –”

“I didn’t even test her,” he said more to himself than to Sam. “I didn’t think to …”

Dean had only just realised.

Yes, he was on his guard when he had woken up lying on a patch of grass in the woods, towered over by some beautiful woman from an olden day chick flick, draped in layers of petticoats or whatever. And he had attacked her when she reached out to do something weird to his throat. But beyond that, after the shit-in-your-pants lightshow that ended with the awe-inspiring shadow of her immense wings, he hadn’t really demanded more proof.

“Maybe she’s a witch,” Dean threw out. “Immortal with freaky healing powers. Explains the outfit. She hasn’t updated her duds since coming over on the Titanic.”

“The Titanic sunk, Dean,” said Sam, sending over his world-weariest bitch-face.

“And she survived,” he justified. “Ergo, witch. Maybe.”

Dean didn’t disbelieve that Cas was an angel, but neither did he entirely believe that she was what she said she was.

“She’s gotta be lying,” said Dean.

“Why do you think Castiel would lie to you about it?” Sam wanted to know. “She seemed pretty sincere to me.”

“You met her for, like, a second,” he brushed off.

Sam hadn’t been the one tailed by Cas through some woods and down miles of sweltering road in Pontiac. If anyone in this situation could be sure, it was him. And he wasn’t. So that was that.

“She could be some kind of demon, for all we know,” said Dean.

“She didn’t seem demonic to me. Possession aside,” said Sam reasonably, trying to work this out. “But,” he added, “ _consensual_ possession. Demons don’t exactly ask for permission, they just take what they want.”

“Because _you_ would know,” Dean shot at him unkindly.

Sam scoffed. “Excuse me?”

“Ruby? Really?”

Dean turned his head to watch Sam roll his eyes and cross his arms.

“We’ve talked about my angel crap,” started Dean.

Sam haughtily raised his eyebrows. “Your angel?”

Dean ignored this remark and pushed down his embarrassment. “So how about I get some answers on your demon crap.” His tone left no room for rebuttal. Not that Sam didn’t try.

**Author's Note:**

> The Zatanna mention is non-canonical, but my own cheeky little nod to Cas and Constantine.


End file.
